Our Provision Supply. 269 



power of the natives, and Europeans are afraid of sinking capital in 

 Egypt while its political future is so uncertain. 



In this colony the sugar estates' authorities after careful 

 sele6lion, from among the East Indian immigrants and 

 Creole labourers, of the most suitable families, might per- 

 haps bring about a similar result. They might locate them 

 on land to cultivate in provisions, for a term of years. 

 At the end of the term, the land might revert to the 

 estate, to be planted by the owner in sugar canes, as 

 praflised on Pin. Houston, or the tenant might continue 

 his occupancy and plant sugar cane to be purchased by 

 the owner or owners. Here comes in the old Scotch-law 

 system, of thierlage, by which tenants were bound to bring 

 all grain to a certain mill, and English Radicals may from 

 this learn the necessity and value of feudal usages. By 

 this system, improved methods of cultivation would be 

 taught to the tenants by the estate's staff, especially if 

 assisted by the steam plough, and seeds and plants 

 suitable to the soil could be procured ; by which means 

 a greater quantity of grain and pulse might be produced 

 and thereby save the colony money paid to the United 

 States for such necessaries. 



No person knowing how Village proprietors in British 

 Guiana perpetuate in their methods of provision culti- 

 vation and daily life, the institutions taught their fore- 

 fathers during the regime of slavery, can be surprised at 

 the value of forty years desert wandering to the Israelites, 

 Habits contra6led in Egypt were forgotten and elimi- 

 nated and a clear course was opened for new habits 

 more suitable to the new conditions. The only path out 

 of this beaten track, is tenant occupation. To conclude, 

 the owners of sugar estates in this colony at the present 



MM 



